South Dakota News Watch and the Chiesman Center for Democracy at the University of South Dakota polled state voters on a variety of topics, including the 2026 GOP gubernatorial primary, favorability ratings on state politicians and opinions on national issues such as tariffs and President Donald Trump's first 100 days.
Mason-Dixon Polling and Strategy, ranked as one of the least biased and most factual pollsters, conducted the poll April 9-11 using random selections from a telephone-matched state voter registration list that included both landline and cellphone numbers. The margin of error was no more than 4.5 percentage points.
The results were published last week here on sdnewswatch.org. If you missed them, scroll down to see links to those stories as well as all of the poll results along with more background on who was polled.
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South Dakota News Watch poll stories
The poll results compiled and chronicled in four stories:
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Poll results: GOP only
Part of the poll featured questions given only to registered Republicans. These questions included opinions on the 2026 GOP gubernatorial primary and questions on potential candidates. These polls are stacked below:
Poll results: All registered voters
The second part of the poll featured questions given to registered voters of all parties. These questions included opinions on the Lincoln County prison, job performance of South Dakota politicians and national political topics.
This story was produced by South Dakota News Watch, an independent, nonprofit organization. Read more stories and donate at sdnewswatch.org and sign up for an email to get stories when they're published. Contact Michael Klinski at michael.klinski@sdnewswatch.org.
